Source: Review of African Political Economy (ROAPE) | Published: 2026-06-18
Category: 아프리카 정치경제 | Keywords: election, elections
This well-written and well-argued volume revisits French political history, especially its colonial (and neocolonial) aspects, which are a blind spot for many historians and political scientists. The intellectual pillar of the book is the notion of ‘electoral imperialism’. The authors use this expression in reference to the way in which elections were used in the colonial period as a device to enable the selection and legitimisation of leaders that were seen in Paris as being favourable to French interests; then, during the post-independence era, to maintain a neocolonial order; and, since the end of the Cold War, to support a formally ‘democratic’ order.
In the first chapter of De la démocratie en Françafrique – Une histoire de l’impérialisme electoral , Pigeaud and Sylla remind us that, contrary to conventional wisdom, the main political thinkers and founding fathers of our so-called democracies were in fact very reluctant to give ordinary people a voice in their republics. Another counter-argument to mainstream contemporary views on democracy is, critically, that the association between the idea of democracy and the use of elections is a historical misconception, especially if we consider that many monarchies were elective, while the classic model of Athenian democracy – despite its various limitations – was based on selecting ordinary citizens by lot rather than voting for representatives.
In the following chapters, the authors revisit history and demonstrate how the French state has silenced the voices of indigenous peoples by different means, even if these were contradictory to the principles and values proclaimed since the French Revolution in 1789. In Chapter II, the first historical period is dominated by the issue of slavery, which was abolished by the first French Republic in 1793, then restored in 1802 by Napoleon, and finally abolished in 1848 by the Second Republic. However, even after they were freed, the path to citizenship was not straightforward for formerly enslaved people, since colonial lobbies remained powerful enough to prevent indigenous peoples from becoming a majority of the voting population of a colony.
Chapter III examines the period when the French state had conquered enough of the global South to become an empire, especially with its territories in Western and Central Africa, but then faced a critical situation where the indigenous populations outnumbered French citizens. [1] Because of this, political citizenship was either denied or rarely granted to indigenous subjects. This applied at all levels, from the local (the colonial assemblies) to the global (France’s National Assembly). Up to the Second World War, the distinction between French citizens and colonial subjects of the French empire was considered essential for maintaining French imperial rule. But at the end of the war the conditions changed, and the French government had to grant political rights to the African masses, extending the franchise beyond the tiny, assimilated elites that benefited from the status quo. However, the principles of equal citizenship and free electoral choice were in practice bypassed by several means. The first of these was the establishment of two electoral colleges, one for the indigenous population and one for the settlers and assimilated people, thus ensuring that the former were underrepresented in the French National Assembly. Added to this were interventions – that included ballot-rigging – by the colonial administration in electoral processes. Another strategy, specific to late French colonialism, was to co-opt African politicians in metropolitan politics, such as Félix Houphouët-Boigny in Côte d’Ivoire and Léopold Sédar Senghor in Senegal, as ministers in the government under the Fourth Republic. Those who adopted or maintained firm opposition to colonialism were heavily repressed. In Cameroon, the Union of the Peoples of Cameroon political party, founded in 1948, was banned in 1955 and its leader, Ruben Um Nyobè, executed by the French army in 1958; while in Niger, the Sawaba party, led by Djibo Bakary, the mayor of Niamey, held a majority of seats in the country’s territorial assembly but was declared illegal in 1959.
Chapter IV discusses the international context that compelled the French state to grant independence to its African territories. At first, when he came to power, Charles de Gaulle wanted to maintain these territories within a federal community (the Communauté Franco-Africaine) where France would retain control over monetary, military and diplomatic issues. Even if the Communauté that de Gaulle had imposed on African political leaders (except for Ahmed Sékou Touré in Guinea), soon proved to be obsolete, the formal independence achieved by these new-born states in 1960 did not call into question the project of implementing neocolonial relations between France and its former colonies. In this context, the Fifth Republic, in order to exercise tighter control over the ruling classes in Françafrique [2] , supported the rapid shift from parliamentary regimes and multiparty systems to presidentialism and single-party systems. This restriction of democratic freedom was made in the name of economic development, but was equally to prevent ‘destabilisation’ in the context of the Cold War.
Addressing the matter of single-party regimes, Chapter V points out that the only feasible political transitions that remained possible were military coups. Some of the coups that took place brought to power ‘progressive’ or ‘revolutionary’ officers, and received popular support, especially among the youth, as was the case in Congo-Brazzaville, Dahomey (now Benin) and Upper Volta (now Burkina Faso). The authors describe the next significant step in this evolution as ‘multipartyism, the highest stage of the single-party system’, alluding to both Lenin and the Cameroonian philosopher Fabien Eboussi Boulaga (Chapter VI). With the end of the Cold War in 1990 and the fall of the Berlin Wall, the ideological justification for the single-party system collapsed. The French discourse after the conference of La Baule was now officially in favour of multipartyism, aligning with a broader global trend. [3] However, the legacy of Françafrique persisted. Several autocrats and authoritarian leaders remained in power and even managed to organise dynastic successions – such as Gnassingbe Eyadema in Togo (2005) and Omar Bongo in Gabon (2009). Moreover, all African states were compelled to implement austerity policies dictated by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. As a result, the so-called democratic transition amounted to, in the words of Malawian economist Thandika Mkandawire, a ‘democracy without choice’ (214–218).
Chapter VII complements those before it by examining the roles of the various stakeholders in the electoral business of Françafrique . These include constitutionalist lawyers, spin doctors, journalists and many others who spared no effort to help former dictators to be declared the winners of elections, duly observed and endorsed by international observers. Chapters VIII and IX present two cases in point: Côte d’Ivoire and Senegal. In the first case, the emergence of a multiparty system overlapped with a succession crisis following the death of Houphouët-Boigny in 1993. The crisis led to a coup in 1999, contested elections in 2000 and a civil war in 2002, which effectively split the country into two, with the south led by the elected president, Laurent Gbagbo, and the north occupied by the rebels of the Forces Nouvelles. The elections of 2010 were also contested and, while the country’s Electoral Commission declared Alassane Ouattara the winner, its Constitutional Court ruled in favour of Gbagbo. France put pressure on the UN representative in Côte d’Ivoire to recognise Ouattara as the legitimate winner, and in April 2011 the French military overthrew Gbagbo, paving the way for Ouattara, who remains in power 15 years later, to become the president.
In the case of Senegal, the authors document the strategies that enabled President Macky Sall to ensure his re-election in the first round of the country’s 2019 presidential elections. The strategies deployed included the judicial exclusion of opposition candidates; the use of ‘big data’ [4] to target voters; the manipulation of the electoral register; and what the authors term ‘electoral eugenics’ – a set of practices aimed at reducing the electoral participation of specific groups, notably the youth and the urban population, as both of these groups tended to support the opposition.
The final chapter, ‘Françafrique in Crisis’, deals with the resurgence of military coups in several francophone states since 2020. While the specific circumstances differ from one country to another, these coups are symptomatic of a deeper dysfunction within the formal democratic systems promoted by France across its sphere of influence in Africa. Among these military regimes, some of them, located in the Sahel, have severed their former links with France and the Economic Community of West African States, accusing the latter of acting as a proxy for French interests. In what was, until recently, its private reserve (‘ pré carré ’), France is now confronted with growing resistance from sovereigntist heads of state. These leaders, often supported by a significant portion of the youth in their countries, openly reject symbols of French dominance, especially its military presence, and the monetary dependency associated with the CFA franc.
The book’s epilogue offers reflections on the nature of the democracy that should be envisioned for future generations, particularly through the conceptual lens of ‘substantive equality’ and ‘substantive democracy’ as articulated by Marxist philosopher István Mészáros. De la démocratie en Françafrique is a landmark contribution to radical scholarship on Africa. For decades, hundreds of articles and dozens of books have addressed constitutional arrangements, party politics and electoral dynamics on the continent. However, much of this mainstream literature has either focused narrowly on the institutional façade of African politics (especially constitutional arguments) or has relied on culturalist and essentialist interpretations of power issues in Africa. In both cases, the role of imperialist and neocolonial rationales has been neglected or deliberately silenced, which is particularly problematic in the case of the French pré carré . Grounded in a theoretical framework of electoral imperialism, and tracing its evolution across historical contexts, the book challenges existing scholarship that has often remained biased or superficial. The dominant literature in political science has failed to critically engage with the one-party systems of the 1960s and the 1970s and has equally failed to deconstruct the so-called democratisation processes during the 1990s.
While this groundbreaking volume deserves praise, certain aspects – particularly omissions – invite critical reflection. For instance, the chapter on Côte d’Ivoire aptly denounces the intervention of the French military and the instrumentalisation of ‘international justice’, in this case the International Criminal Court, against Gbagbo. However, the analysis would have been more convincing had it explicitly addressed the underlying issue of ‘ ivoirité ’ in this crisis, especially because Gbagbo himself had previously exploited xenophobic feelings by referring to the immigrant population from Burkina Faso as ‘electoral cattle’. Another area of concern is the assessment of military coups. While the authors are right to link these coups to the specific context of Françafrique , where formal electoral competition had long been deadlocked, and observe that these military regimes have severed links with neocolonialism, the analysis could go further. Whereas these milit